Friday, July 27, 2012

Here's my latest Fantasy model, the relatively new plastic Necromancer. I really like the model (much more so than the older metal models), and it had a fair amount of texture on it, making it pretty fun to paint. I used the same method for painting his robes as I did for the Techmarine's armor, but I finished with a Soft Body Black wash. It produced a pretty cool effect, in my opinion.

My opponent was Grey Knights. He took 2 Storm Ravens, one with a Psyfleman Dreadnought, Librarian and 5 Terminators w/ incinerator, and the other with Draigo and 5 Terminators w/ incinerator. He also had two 5 strong Terminator squads with psycannons, which he kept in reserve to deep strike. (We ignored the whole lose the game if you don't have any models on the table thing...)

Monday, July 23, 2012

I present the last unit from my Executioners 1,850 point list, the Thunderfire Cannon. I had some issues with this model in Finecast, but it painted up well. The Thunderfire itself was a bit simple to paint, mostly being just weathered metal. I put some freehand on it to spice things up. It got a bunch of weathering too.

Friday, July 20, 2012

There were several army builds in 5th Edition that relied on remaining mostly or even completely in reserve. These included Descent of Angels Blood Angels, Webway Dark Eldar, and Genestealer heavy Tyranids. In 6th Edition, a few changes have forced radical alterations to these style armies. These changes are:

1) Only half of an army may be placed in reserve. A unit and its dedicated transport count as a single unit when determining this, and units that have to start the game in reserve don't count. However, Independent Characters count as a unit regardless of whether they join another unit or not.

2) If an army has no models on the table at the end of any game turn, it automatically loses the game.

3) Reserves arrive on a 3+ on Turn 2 and 3, and automatically on Turn 4. Reserves are this far more reliable now.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I've been trying to get my 1,250 Vampire Counts list ready for the tournament at the end of the month. All of the infantry and characters are painted, and the only model I needed painted for the current list is the Varghulf. I went to work on him, and here he is. Now I really need to practice with the list some more.

Monday, July 16, 2012

With the changes to special rules in 6th Edition, the value of some of the Badab characters on the tabletop has changed dramatically. I just wanted to go through those characters that did change and update my thoughts on them. If a character isn't listed here, it's because I don't think their use changed appreciably.

Also, Forgeworld put out an FAQ to update their psykers, which can be found here. I'm also updating characters that were changed by the FAQ.

Friday, July 13, 2012

I've been reading a lot of discussion about power weapons lately. Mostly, it seems to be about how none of the options except the power fist are worthwhile any more. I really don't think this is the case, and I though I'd weigh in.

First, the power fist is still the most dangerous and flexible option. That really hasn't changed. It really lives up to its cost now. It's most common competitor, the thunder hammer, lost its effect on vehicles, so now it's not really worth the additional cost above power fists. It still reduces any model it hits to I1, so it's useful against characters (that it doesn't instakill) and monstrous creatures.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

I've noticed a bit of a funny convergence lately, with several podcasts that I listen to covering aspects of the Badab War. Given that's one of my main topics, I figured my readers might be interested in listening to them.

First off, Deep Strike Radio has a two part episode covering the fluff and timeline of the Badab War. If you want to hear about the progress of the war overall, and not so much about the inidividual chapters which I cover here, check out episodes #38 and 39.

Second, the Imperial Vox Cast has a more competitive minded look at the characters available in Imperial Armour 9 and 10, similar to what I've done previously. We're generally on the same wavelength, but they've got an interesting take on the characters.

I also wanted to mention that the usefulness of many of the Badab characters has changed greatly with 6th Edition. I'll be putting up an updated discussion of the effects of 6th on all of the characters that I've previously covered soon.

Monday, July 9, 2012

My latest Executioners model is my Land Speeder, named Osric's Mirth. The cackling skull on the front belonged to Osric. The model painted up pretty quick and easy, and I think the gold accents fit in better here than they do on my Predators. The Speeder is magnetized so that I can use any of the weapons that it comes with. This was way more of a pain to do than the Predators, but I finally figured it out. I also tried out a different weathering scheme, using streaks of black pigment to make the Speeder look like it's picking up grit and dust as it flies along.

Friday, July 6, 2012

I managed to pick up the new rulebook for 40K a couple days after release, since I spent the release weekend traveling. I've just finished reading the rules, and I thought I'd post up my initial thoughts on it. Bear in mind, I haven't had a chance to play the game yet, so these are all just educated guess on how this works out.

Overall, I like the new rules. It seems to me that they're really not changed that much from 5th Edition, but rather expanded to included more details into the game. Many types of units gain extra rules, whether inflicting extra hits when they charge in, or being able to jink away from incoming fire (a great throwback to 3rd Edition!). Overwatch is back as a charge response, rapid fire weapons got better, heavy weapons can be fired (albeit inaccurately) on the move, and many new classes of weapons have been reintroduced into the game. Grenades can actually kill models. Most people have had their chance to read over the rules by now, so you don't need me to tell you what changed. I thought I'd concentrate on how the rule changes affect my Blood Angels and Executioners.

Monday, July 2, 2012

As I'm very inexperienced with this edition of Warhammer Fantasy, I wanted to put up the list I plan to use in the July tournament. If any of my readers are Fantasy players (I know my blog skews more toward the 40K crowd), I would really appreciate some feedback. This is my first list, which will be refined as I get in some games with it.